Casting Net: Lizzy Caplan joins Joseph Gordon-Levitt Christmas comedy

• Masters of Sex star Lizzy Caplan will play Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s love interest in Sony’s untitled Christmas Eve-set comedy. Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, and Anthony Mackie will star as three childhood friends who reunite in New York City for their annual night-before-Christmas bash. Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street) will play Rogen’s wife in the film from writer/director Jonathan Levine, who previously worked with Rogen and Gordon-Levitt on the cancer comedy 50/50. [THR]

• Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Stanley Tucci are all in talks for the sex abuse scandal film Spotlight. Ruffalo and McAdams would play reporters for The Boston Globe who launch a yearlong investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of pedophile priests in Massachusetts. Tom McCarthy (Win Win) is directing from a script by Josh Singer(The Fifth Estate). [THR]

• Matthew Rhys will cook off against Bradley Cooper in the untitled culinary film from director John Wells (August: Osage County). The Americans star is set to play rival chef Reece to Cooper’s Adam Jones, an American cooking in Paris looking to make a comeback after his bad behavior and diva attitude destroy his career. The Steven Knight (Locke)-scripted film was originally titled Chef, but The Weinstein Company will be renaming the flick after the release of Jon Favreau’s own Chef movie. In addition to Cooper, the all-star cast already includes Sienna Miller, Uma Thurman, Emma Thompson, and Fifty Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan.[Deadline]

• Naomie Harris (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) is set to star opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in the boxing drama Southpaw. Written by Sons of Anarchy’s Kurt Sutter and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), the film follows a welterweight champ struggling to balance his personal life with his professional success. Harris, who will soon reprise her role as Eve Moneypenny in the next Bond film, will play a social worker trying to help Gyllenhaal’s character and daughter. [Deadline]

• Pitch Perfect actor Ben Platt will worship rock star Meryl Streep in the music drama Ricki and the Flash. Currently starring on Broadway as Elder Cunningham in The Book of Mormon, Platt will play Daniel, a bartender obsessed with Streep’s title character. Kevin Kline and Rick Springsteen will also star in the project directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) from Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody(Juno). [Deadline]

• Kerry Bishé has joined the indie drama The Ticket. The Halt and Catch Fire actress will play the co-worker and mistress to Dan Stevens’ (Downton Abbey) character, a blind man who regains his sight only to be emotionally blinded by the superficial world. Malin Akerman and Oliver Platt will also star in the film by Israeli writer/director Ido Fluk, which starts filming this month in New York. [Variety]